


Ignition

by Chocchi



Series: Close Calls [1]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, spoilers for saving yukiko (but not really)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 18:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocchi/pseuds/Chocchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yosuke's last, frantic thought is 'oh my god, we're going to die.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> wow hey hi this is my first fic for persona 4 and i'm not actually that far in the game so... i guess i apologize if the characterization seems weird.  
> anyway feedback and/or constructive criticism would be adored!! i hope you enjoy.

Yosuke’s last, frantic thought is _oh my god, we’re going to die_.

Except then there’s a crackle of thunder and an ungodly screech, and it _isn’t_ his last thought at all. He is having more thoughts every second, too-fast, barely-coherent, and almost all some variation of _holy shit we’re not dead?_

“Jesus,” he coughs, staggering a little. Souji stumbles over, wild-eyed and unsteady, and almost sends them both crashing into the ground when their shoulders knock together.

“Hi,” he gasps. His fingers have found their way into Yosuke’s sleeves, somehow, are fisted there. Yosuke tries to dredge up irritation for this fact. It doesn’t work.

“Hi,” he manages to return, and finds, to what will surely be his later mortification, that his own fingers are twisting into the hem of Souji’s own shirt. “I-- hi.”

They stare at each other for another moment before Souji barks out a sudden, choked laugh and untangles his hands from Yosuke’s shirt long enough to throw his arms around his neck. Yosuke adjusts, instinctively, so that his own hands are clutched in the back of Souji’s jacket.

“We did it,” Souji half-laughs, half-- oh, God, Yosuke hopes he’s not crying, Yosuke doesn’t know how to deal with crying-- “We really did it, we saved her, oh--”

“We’re _alive_ ,” Yosuke half-says, half-wonders. He flexes his fingers and cringes involuntarily as adrenaline gives way to pain. “ _Ow_. I hurt-- I hurt _everywhere_.”

“Yeah,” Souji says, mostly into Yosuke’s collar. "Yeah."

He pulls away, but not before giving Yosuke a final squeeze, and they half-support each other as they stumble over to crash Chie’s heartfelt reunion with Yukiko.

And if Souji doesn’t let Yosuke get more than an arm’s length away before he’s shifting back into his space until they’re out of the castle, well, Yosuke doesn’t really have any ground to stand on.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“You can’t go home like that,” Yosuke says, suddenly.

They’re still slumped over the covered table outside Junes; Yukiko hauled a maybe-concussed Chie off just a minute ago. Souji looks up from the loose thread on his sleeve he’s been picking at, gives his friend a befuddled stare, then looks back down at himself.

“I can’t?”

“You can’t,” Yosuke insists. “I think your uncle would actually kill me.”

“It’s not that bad,” Souji tries.

Yosuke just raises an eyebrow.

“Anyway, you’re not much better off yourself.”

Mostly he’s just trying to deflect, but Yosuke really is a sight to behold; his jacked is badly singed, he has a bloody nose, and his forearms (although his sleeves cover them now) are a truly impressive display of burns and bloody scratches.

“It’s cool,” Yosuke says, _completely_ unconvincingly. “I’ll just tell my parents I crashed my bike.”

“Into a _furnace?_ ” Souji raises his own eyebrows. “With _teeth?_ ”

Yosuke gives him an incredibly put-out look, as though it’s _Souji’s_ fault his excuse is transparent.

“Damn bird,” he grouses, mostly to himself, mopping at the blood on his face with an already-ruined sleeve. “Fine, you win. Come on. If we can get to the break room without someone calling the cops, there should be a first aid kit. We can patch each other up.”

“Okay,” Souji agrees, slightly mollified.

It takes a considerable amount of sneaking to make their way to the back of Junes and into the break room without anyone getting a good enough look at them ( _a passing glance would probably do_ ) to freak out, but it’s worth it, Souji thinks. He feels better the second he sees an ice-pack in Yosuke’s hand.

“I still don’t understand how you got a black eye,” Yosuke says, forcing Souji to hold the pack to his eye before wandering back to the freezer for more. “I mean, it was a bird.”

“It was a magic bird,” Souji says. “And it dive-bombed me.”

“Fair enough, I guess.”

“How’s your nose?”

“Bloody,” Yosuke shrugs, wipes at it again. “Sorry. I must look gross. Let me clean it up a little.”

“No, let me.” Souji grabs a paper towel, dampens it under the tap, then holds Yosuke’s chin to keep him still while he wipes the blood away. “You’re right, you do look gross.”

“Yeah, because you’re looking so pretty yourself.”

“I always look pretty.”

“Keep telling yourself that, partner,” Yosuke scoffs. Souji makes a face at him, but his hands stay gentle. “What do you think? Am I family-friendly yet?”

“Maybe if you hide your jacket in your bag,” Souji says, doubtfully. “And let me take a look at your arms.”

Yosuke dutifully sheds his jacket and presents his arms, pale underside-up, and lets Souji swab and fuss at them until they’re at least clean, and _mostly_ covered, if not soaking in some kind of antibacterial ointment.

“Your turn,” he says, when Souji is (sort of) satisfied, reaching for the kit.

“Don’t need it,” Souji insists.

“Yeah?” Yosuke snorts, sparing one hand to tug at the hem of Souji’s jacket until he reluctantly pulls it off. “What’re you gonna tell Dojima, exactly? You crashed your bike?”

“Into a furnace,” Souji says, solemnly, but he can’t stop the corner of his mouth from twitching up, just a little bit.

“With teeth, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Souji slouches in his chair, and they both lapse into silence. Yosuke has to shove Souji’s sleeves up to his elbow to get at some of the scratches, but he feels less awkward about it than maybe he would otherwise when he takes into consideration that Souji had his hands all over his face ten minutes ago.

“I thought we were goners,” Yosuke murmurs, out of the blue. Souji looks at him sharply, but his eyes are trained on the burn he’s meticulously applying ointment to. “At the end, there.”

“I--” Souji hesitates. “Sorry.”

Yosuke raises his eyebrows, without looking up. “What for?”

“For-- pushing, I guess. We still had-- two days. According to the weather forecast. We could have taken another day to train.”

“Yeah, well,” Yosuke reaches into the kit for another bandage. “It’s not like I don’t understand the urgency or anything.”

“I-- fuck.” Souji squeezes his eyes shut tightly. “I thought-- when Chie fell over... I thought, for a minute--”

Yosuke’s grip on his arm tightens, briefly.

“If we hadn’t taken her out, before she got another attack in,” Souji says-- it’s not even whispering, whispering seems too loud a word, he feels like he’s _breathing_ out this confession, “I think she would have killed us.”

“She didn’t, though,” Yosuke grits out, wiping at another scrape with perhaps a little more force than is necessary. His nails dig into Souji’s arm.

“No,” Souji agrees. He opens his eyes again, tilts his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “She didn’t. And Chie’s going to be okay, and we saved Yukiko.”

“Yeah,” Yosuke says. “We did, didn’t we?”

“We did,” Souji sighs. When he lets his head loll forward again, Yosuke is staring, but he’s too tired to interpret the emotions on his friend’s face. He just gives him a tired smile instead. “And now we can go home and maybe even sleep a proper night.”

“Christ,” Yosuke laughs. All of his features indicate exhaustion, indicate tension and stress, but the lopsided smile on his face looks real, at least. “As if.”

“I’m right-- you’ll see. I bet you’ll sleep like a log.”

“You’re on. What are we betting?”

“Loser has to treat winner to lunch?”

“Deal,” Yosuke says, slapping on one last bandage before they shake on it. “Seriously, though, how the hell are we going to explain this? We both need new uniform jackets, we look like we’ve been locked in a room with angry cats, we’re covered in freaking burns--”

“We crashed,” Souji offers. “Into a rosebush. On your bike. All of the burns are bandaged, so they won’t know any better-- you gave me the black eye, and I gave you the bloody nose. When we fell.”

“The jackets?”

Souji makes a face. He doesn’t know how to explain their charred jackets.

“Tragically lost,” Yosuke decides. “Somehow. In the crash.”

“Maybe somebody can clean them up for us,” Souji says, doubtfully.

“Yeah, that would be a fun conversation,” Yosuke says. “‘By the by, I happen to have a school uniform jacket that looks like it’s been charbroiled, is there anything you can do about that? Oh no, don’t worry about how it got like that in the first place--’”

“Shut up,” Souji laughs, giving him a half-hearted shove. “Smartass.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Yosuke says. He takes both of their jackets and shoves them into his bag. “Clearly our plan is foolproof, no one will ever realize it’s all a whole lot of bullshit, et cetera, et cetera. Want me to walk you home, princess?”

“Ugh,” Souji says, even though he kind of does, actually, “If I never hear the word _princess_ again, it will be too soon.”

“Hear fucking _hear_ ,” Yosuke says, reverently.

Souji rolls his sleeves down again. “Well,” he says. “Let’s go, then.”

 

(When Adachi tells him, later that night, that Yukiko has been “found”, Souji finds himself inadvertently remembering the odd mixture of grim determination and terror that had occupied Yosuke’s face in the last moments of the battle-- the way he followed through to the very end, trusted Souji not to lead them astray. He remembers that trembling, sick feeling in his stomach, trying to steady himself enough to summon his Persona when Chie was down and dizzy and very nearly unconscious and all of them were so low on health. The dizziness when they managed to take the bird out, and he didn't have the crutch of panic to keep himself upright.

He remembers pressing himself up against Yosuke, feeling both of their pulses, and knowing that they’d saved Yukiko-- saved Chie-- saved _themselves_ \-- god, they’d fucking _won_ , and they hadn’t died and they _did it_. They saved Yukiko.

And later, he will remember telling Adachi, almost detachedly, “What a relief.”)


End file.
